"S.O.S. Campaign" Raises Just Over $35,000

Special thanks to everyone who helped this year's effort to raise cash contributions through a Giving Booth at the Relief Sale this weekend. The unofficial total is $35,575*, and as far as I know, there are very few expenses to deduct, since much of the time and materials needed were donated. 

My personal thanks to Joe Lapp and to Everence for staffing the table, to Mark Harmon and others from Harrisonburg Mennonite for setting up the "refugee tent" with MCC kits and SOS information outside the main building, to author Lauren Pichon for donating and selling her "Messages from Maryam" books for the SOS project (we have 8 left, if anyone would like one for a donation), to Karen Gonzols for creating the logo and the flier used in promoting the project (and for keeping minutes of our planning meetings), to Lisa Lehman and others who helped publicize SOS, to Relief Sale Chair Dave Rush for his great support, to Harman Construction, Kline/May Realty and Interchurch, Inc., for helping create a $1500 matching fund, for all of you who encouraged, contributed, attended planning meetings and otherwise helped make this happen. 

I would have been glad to have raised many times this year's amount, not for the campaign's sake, but for the sake of needy refugees of war and famine everywhere, but I'm truly grateful for what was accomplished, and for the fact that it appears that the total revenue from the Sale may be break all previous records, according to preliminary reports.

But in order  to keep our humility intact, and to remind us of the potential for SOS kind of giving in the future, we should note that $35,000 still represents only around $3.50 of such giving per person at this year's amazing event attended by some 10,000 people. That's equal to the price of about 3 1/2 glazed doughnuts.

I should add that My Coins Count, formerly Penny Power, another amazing cash giving project, raised another $26,000 from pocket change contributed over the past year by members of over 30 Mennonite congregations.

Thanks, everyone, and you can still contribute online at http://vareliefsale.com/donate/ (be sure to check the SOS button).

* The final and official tally was just under $41,000.